[Perfect Stu]

Like so much of the game, though, The Getaway's 3D combat system has a lot of potential that's waiting to come together. At present, the camera is often a serious hindrance to getting around. The early action sequences have the somewhat "scripted" feel of Winback -- i.e., it's easy to complete them if you follow the planned best path through all the enemy and camera triggers, but getting on a different route leads to camera errors and frequent blindside attacks. Camera direction and enemy placement need to be tuned to allow freer movement around the areas. The camera system needs especially precise tuning, because the indoor environments often lead you into very cramped spaces, like a loading dock full of tight passages between stacked-up shipping containers.
The environments look very good, though, and like most everything else in the game, they're based on real-life reference. Some of the pieces had to be drawn together from different sources -- a Triad gambling den in the game was based on inspiration from a couple of different casinos and abandoned buildings -- but the finished products have plenty of detail in their architecture and backgrounds. The rickety sections of slum buildings have plenty of bent starcases, peeling wallpaper, old radiators, and anachronistic light fixtures, while better-kept areas like Charlie's office have the appropriate expensive appointments and knick-knacks.

Character design and animation in the action sequences shows a similar attention to detail. There's a wide array of different reaction and death animation for the bad guys, including proper interaction with the environment -- corpses slump against walls and over railings without clipping through them. Mark himself shows the effect of damage realistically as well. To keep the combat GUI as clear as the driving mode's, there's no energy meter to indicate how close he is to death. Instead, he limps or holds a hurt limb to gradually indicate more and more damage. Looking more closely at each model shows individually mapped faces, more than 200 in all, most of which are based on scans from real actors (including the author of this article).

"Culture, genius, sophistication..."

All of this talk about gameplay detail unfortunately obscures The Getaway's cinematic ambitions, but those are what could be its strongest point, even if everything else runs like clockwork. This game is already a technical achievement in videogame storytelling, and it looks like its story and characters are worth the expense of all the nuts and bolts behind them. Sony has shown us only a fraction of the whole so far, but it's a very interesting fraction.

The Getaway draws all of its cinema sequences with the in-game engine, although cutscenes use different character models with higher polygon counts and more detailed textures. The animations are the interesting part, however. Nearly every cutscene is based on motion-capture data from the same actors who provide the dialogue and the physical likeness of their characters. Team Soho is one of the first, if not the first, organizations to use a new magnetic motion-capture system for this purpose. Traditional motion-capture systems kit out actors in suits that are picked up by optical sensors. Thus, it's hard to get accurate data from more than one actor at a time, or in a set with too many props -- anything that gets in the way of a sensor blocks that data point. The magnetic system, on the other hand, can capture as many as five people at once, all reacting to each other, and they can use all the props they like, providing none of them contain any metal.

The result is perfectly-captured physical acting, at least as far as the raw motion data is concerned. That still has to be translated by the animators and the 3D engine, which has its limitations when it comes to collision detection, but so far it looks excellent in the few cinemas we've seen. The synchronization between the characters' dialogue and their body language is very good, and the actors are able to play off each other effectively. It's also very funny to watch the capture sessions in action. The game's first cinema begins with four thugs arguing in a parked car, a scene which was captured by four actors in sensor suits sitting inside a wood-frame prop car.

The Getaway also uses some interesting new techniques for facial animation, particularly as it relates to spoken dialogue. Each model's face includes 28 "bones" that work together to articulate its movements, which are in turn directed by software that translated the phonemes in the dialogue into the corresponding animations. This provides a fairly accurate rough that can be further tuned by hand. Textures are supplied by a detailed scan of the actor's face, scaled up or down from the high-detail original in accordance with the demands of a particular scene.

At least as cool as the technology, though, is the flavor of the game, as raw as the movies that inspired it. The accents are all appropriate, to the point of incomprehensibility at times -- the Cockney slang is thick, and the Yardie patois even more so. This also may be the first video game to have decently-delivered profanity. After all, there's been plenty of cursing in stuff like the early Grand Theft Autos, but Mark's "I'll do more than an injury, I'll f---ing kill you!" is the first time I've heard a game character cuss like they mean it.

Of course, that's only a minor aspect of the dialogue's quality, never mind how large it looms in the curiously limited world of videogames. In the larger sense, it's well-written and well-performed. Mark is the appropriate hero for the setting, blending feeling with the ruthlessness he's forced to revive. Charlie has the potential to chew the scenery a bit much, but he dials down the evil when necessary, and he has a touch of the pride that showed through in Bob Hoskins' anti-hero from The Long Good Friday. Frank Carter is a mix of obsession and the no-nonsense edge portrayed by his fellow Flying Squad cops from The Sweeney (a reference most Americans will probably miss), and the other supporting lead, a hitter named Yasmin, serves as the sort of devil on Mark's other shoulder. She's a little like the call girl Cathy Tyson played in Mona Lisa, if she were to move out of the vice clubs and into a role as the gang boss' hatchetman. Her exterior is hard as a rock, but there's some sense of decency left that leads her to eventually take Mark's side.

"Tell me all you know!"

At this point, The Getaway consists of some very impressive pieces. Gluing them all together is what needs to be done over the rest of this year. If Team Soho can deliver as promised, tightening up the 3D engine. the camera system, and some of the collision detection problems in the cutscenes, this will be a genre-breaker for the holiday season. And if you can't get the hang of driving down the "wrong" side of the road, well, that's your own lookout.